10 January 2019
Diary of a Corbynista
Christmas spirit evaporates
by Don Urquhart
20 December
I’ve installed King Wenceslas behind Window 20 of the Corbynista Advent Calendar. This 9th Century Bohemian monarch famously instituted his own food bank and went out into the crisp even snow to reel in a customer. So I watched Politics Live in the hope of spotting a similar kind of chap and was confronted by Tory Lord Daniel Finkelstein who pointed out that stopping people freezing and starving on the streets had to be matched against the need to cut the deficit. I guess he’s right. After all 9th Century Bohemia was a primitive society compared with the Elysium constructed by Danny and his pals on our behalf.
On Tuesday night, Gyula Remes, a homeless working man was found dead in the street a few yards from the Houses of Parliament.
21 December
John is not his real name. Please watch this BBC news item. He tells how he joined the far right at the age of 15, because he was angry and could see no future. He bought into the argument promoted by The Sun and The Daily Mail, that his problems were caused by immigrants. Now Jeremy Hunt warns us that reversing Brexit would bring people onto the streets. He has failed to notice that they are there already. We have to decide whether we want Tommy Robinson to determine Brexit policy. It’s not unlike the threat of Oswald Mosley in the 1930’s. John has escaped the clutches of the far right and sits as a beacon behind Window 21.
22 December
Any Questions last night ended in a fiery exchange between Joanna Cherry MP and Jacob Rees-Mogg MP. I was just nodding off as Jacob went through his “not really a hard border” routine in those gorgeous fruity tones. Then Joanna exploded:
I’m really grateful to Jonathan for reading out what Leo Varadkar said. I went and read it myself today because I knew that this would come up and that Jacob would misrepresent it for his narrow little right wing project.
Could Joanna be Peter Pan for Window 22? – Not sure, but Jacob is a natural for Captain Hook.
23 December
Will Theresa May’s Withdrawal Bill go through? John is a commentator who usually gets it right and he thinks it will, adding:
Could be wrong of course but I think the PM is probably the only one with Balls.
This characteristic is essential for a matador, who cannot succeed without cojones. In the ring the noble creature is softened up by picadores and banderilleros so that when it comes to the estocada the bull is already on his last legs. But for all this the matador certainly needs courage as the beast can take a gruesome revenge.
However that is where the parallels end for the corrida is an aesthetic experience conducted with elegance and finesse. Our Prime Minister presides over pantomime. The matador holds his opponent in great respect whereas Theresa May holds hers in contempt. The House of Commons sits behind Window 23.
24 December
Bill Gates visited our firm way back and explained the beauties of Windows 3.1. Afterwards we asked Scott, our top guy why he had not taken Gates to task on several of the product’s manifest defects.
Have you ever tried arguing with a billion dollars?
I was reminded of this yesterday when reading JK Rowling’s 16 tweets comprising an epic poem in biblical style, slagging off the Labour Party leader. Well, whatever that lady says, JC is our best hope for the poor and the vulnerable in this country and he sits behind the extra big Christmas Eve window.
25 December
The charity Crisis reports that rough sleeping has doubled in the last 5 years. As with so many other urgent problems this government just kicks it down the road.
The Sky News headline says it all:
Government hopes to eliminate homelessness by 2027
26 December
Boxing Day was invented in 1874. The name arose from the boxes of food given by the wealthy to their servants on the day after Christmas. Perhaps it is time to rename it Foodbank Day.
27 December
In Scotland and Wales you don’t pay to park at hospitals but in England you do. The Press Association reports that 40% of English hospitals increased parking charges in 2018. One of Corbyn’s ruinous Marxist proposals is to eliminate hospital parking charges.
28 December
A couple of weeks ago Corbynista reported the case of Ian Howgate, who, destitute and refused legal aid, represented himself in court and won against all the odds. Nigel Evans, Tory MP for Ribblesdale, voted to cut legal aid in 2012 but admits he was wrong after stumping up £130,000 of his own money to pay for lawyers to defend him.
29 December
It’s obvious really. If you want to get rough sleepers off the streets give them a one way ticket to somewhere else. The Guardian reports that 6,810 travel tickets have been purchased by 83 councils in England and Wales since 2015.
Experts have said that without support and accommodation, the policy does not resolve homelessness but just moves it to another area.
30 December
Yesterday a good friend told me of a front page article in The Telegraph where an anonymous civil servant claims that we are superbly well-prepared for a no deal Brexit and to suggest otherwise is to slander the Civil Service. To me the article screams fake, and it concerns me that there might still be some people in the paper’s diminishing readership who consider it to be fine journalism.
31 December
While Sajid Javid runs round bolstering his profile and shouting crisis about a few people entering the country illegally, Charlotte Hughes is dealing with a real crisis of poverty, hunger and homelessness in Ashton-under-Lyne and documents it in The Poor Side of Life.
1 January
At our local primary the new intake comprises 45 children, 29 of whom do not have English as a first language. It’s not their fault, it’s not the parents’ fault, it’s not the school’s fault; but the education of all 45 will be impoverished because the government lets it happen and denies that there is a problem.
2 January
In or out of the EU is irrelevant to Dean Lovell-Payne, a disabled man driven to attempt suicide by the DWP. For people like him getting rid of the Tories is what counts.
3 January
A report in iNews tells of Neil Wright who suffers from acute arthritis. His regular monthly benefit payment is £284 but on December 14th he received just 1 penny to live on until January 14th and by then who knows what amount the DWP will deem appropriate.
A spokesman for the DWP said:
We’re looking into the details of this case. Universal Credit is a force for good for the vast majority and is helping people get into work faster and stay in work longer.
4 January
A friend tells me that he recently visited Ballymena and met some ladies who are ardent fans of Theresa May. According to some opinion polls she is much more popular than Jeremy Corbyn. If I were her I would capitalise on these sentiments and increase my parliamentary majority at a General Election.
5 January
In Londonderry’s Creggan Estate a government worker was told he had 5 minutes to leave the area and the Department for Infrastructure has suspended services. A young man was kneecapped there just before Christmas and cars have been burnt out.
Councillor Gary Donnelly told Derry Now:
The burning of cars is purely a result of frustration. There is a vacuum in policing which the community doesn’t see being addressed. This lack of action has led to this frustration.
We have a police force which saturated areas like Creggan and is more interested in kicking in doors of republican activists and stop and searches. So, the perception is that police are turning a blind eye to criminal behaviour in the same community.
6 January
According to a BBC report many Scottish schools are unable to find teachers.
The Scottish government’s response:
Scottish ministers said teacher numbers were at their highest since 2010.
Either the Scottish government is being crass or the BBC is seeking to make it appear so.
7 January
My cats put up with a lot of nonsense. I threaten and praise, cajole and canoodle, but, whatever comes out of my mouth they hear only:
Food or No Food.
They have conditioned responses but basically they trust me to deliver.
Matt Hancock and Theresa May were on TV yesterday promising lots of jam tomorrow for the NHS.
I have conditioned responses to what these people say. I do not trust them to deliver.
8 January
This is what has happened to our country.
Tory MP Anna Soubry on being subjected to abuse from demonstrators yesterday.
She will not see it as a direct result of 9 years of austerity which she has assiduously supported.
When people see no future for themselves they are easy prey to demagogues of all stripes. Hence Sir Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists in the 1930’s.
We have plenty of this to come as austerity continues to bite and rabble-rousers exploit the opportunities.
9 January
There is a fine line between political conviction and bigotry, as between football fandom and hooliganism. Once on the North Bank at Highbury we were called upon by lowering Neanderthals to “Stand up if you hate Tottenham”. My wife, as doughty an Arsenal fan as any, refused: “I don’t hate them I pity them”. If only such compassion could be injected into the Democratic Football Lads Alliance, a perfect storm of racist bigotry aimed at recruiting football’s lowest common denominator. It is ironic that Sajid Javid, the government minister keenest to ride the nationalist wave is a Moslem.
